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Fluid overpressure from chemical reactions in serpentinite within the source region of deep episodic tremor

Nature Geoscience volume 12, pages 1034–1042 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Slow fault slip includes a range of transient phenomena that occur over timescales longer than those of standard earthquakes. Slow slip events are often closely associated with swarms of tectonic tremor. Deep episodic tremor and slip close to the slab–mantle interface in subduction zones has been linked to high fluid pressures produced by dehydration of the subducting slab at greater depths. The slab–mantle interface is a fundamental chemical boundary, where mantle rocks are sheared and mixed with oceanic slab lithologies in a highly reactive environment to form serpentinite. Here we present field and microstructural observations from the plate boundary-scale crustal Livingstone Fault in New Zealand that suggest chemical reactions involving serpentinite can promote rock hardening and generate in situ fluid overpressures. We infer that these processes collectively can result in hydrofracturing and a transition from distributed creep to localized brittle failure and faulting. Serpentinite-related reactions occur over a wide range of pressure and temperature conditions that overlap with those in many forearc mantle wedges. We conclude that the release of fluids derived from such reactions may be an additional and widespread mechanism to generate high fluid pressure patches and brittle failure in the source region of deep tremor along the slab–mantle interface.

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Fig. 1: The habitat of ETS.
Fig. 2: Global compilation of estimated P–T conditions of metasomatic reactions involving serpentinite.
Fig. 3: Structural characteristics of the Livingstone Fault serpentinite shear zone36.
Fig. 4: Serpentinite fault rock microstructure and textural evolution during metasomatism.
Fig. 5: Metasomatic vein networks in the serpentinite shear zone.
Fig. 6: Localized brittle faulting associated with metasomatic reaction zones.

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The data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its Supplementary information files.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Marsden Fund Council (projects UOO1417 and UOO1829) administered by the Royal Society Te Apārangi, with additional funding from University of Otago Research Grants. We thank M. Negrini and B. Pooley for technical support.

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  1. Department of Geology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Matthew S. Tarling, Steven A. F. Smith & James M. Scott

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Contributions

M.S.T., S.A.F.S. and J.M.S. carried out fieldwork and performed microstructural analysis of fault rocks. M.S.T. wrote the paper with discussion and input from all authors. S.A.F.S. and J.M.S. supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Matthew S. Tarling.

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Tarling, M.S., Smith, S.A.F. & Scott, J.M. Fluid overpressure from chemical reactions in serpentinite within the source region of deep episodic tremor. Nat. Geosci. 12, 1034–1042 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0470-z

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